Event Details
Book Study — Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir(Joan Chittister)
Zoom Online on Wednesdays Evening from 7:00 pm to 8:15 pm.
Here are the Dates for the 6-Week book study on Wednesdays Evening: Wednesday, September 17; Wednesday, September 24; Wednesday, October 1; Wednesday, October 8; Wednesday, October 15; Wednesday, October 22. The cost is $100 per person for six sessions.
**We will be having the book for sale in our Gift Shop.
Cancellation policy
Overnight or Multi-day/weekend retreats: $50 fee. Day Retreat: $20. Fees may be applied to future retreats. The fees may be waived in event of extenuating circumstances. Contact Kateri at 925-837-9141 x315.
About the Event
Brother Mark is offering an on-line book study for six Wednesday evenings in a row—starting September 17—from 7:00pm until 8:15pm. The book is divided into 6 sections, so that easily fits our schedule, and we will explore together one section per week.
The Zoom sessions will contain prayer experiences, reading through the text, and time for discussion. Our pace is easy-going even though the topics are pertinent and profound.
Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir is Sr. Joan Chittister’s 2004 book that is alive with the raw energy of a journal and polished with the skill of a master storyteller, each chapter is an engaging dialogue between Sr. Joan and many different wisdom sources about such topics as God’s existence and call, experience, struggle, justice, the role of women and men in society and church, living through doubt, and celebrating life. The paperback edition contains a new Preface by the author.
Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister, has dedicated her life to voicing questions that test popularly accepted truths of the day. Her questions to both church and society focus on the empowerment of women, the development of contemporary spirituality, and justice for the oppressed and marginalized, particularly those in prison.
The author writes:
‘This is a book that examines the multiple threads that makeup the lifelong warp and woof of the spiritual experience. It gives no single set of rules. It describes no mystical secrets. It guarantees no certain system of spiritual advancement. It simply looks at all the dimensions of life as we live it today and ask what, if anything, is holy-making about any of it.’
‘It is, in other words, an excursion into the questions and soul-searching of one person but it is not, if it is true, only one person’s story. It is every person’s story. Yours as well as mine. And it is not traveled alone, this path to purpose and perception. It happens in conjunction with all the experiences and truths of all the rest of all the people of my world.’
Weekly themes:
- The Inward Life: A Discovery of the Obvious
- Immersion in Life: The Other Side of Inwardness
- Resistance: The Gospel Imperative
- Feminist Spirituality: The Coming of a New World
- Ecology: The Other Side of the Spiritual Life
- Dailiness: The Gifts of the Mundane
**We will be having the book for sale in our Gift Shop.
About the Presenter(s)
Bro. Mark Schroeder, O.F.M.
Mark has been a Franciscan Friar for over 40 years. He lives at San Damiano Retreat. Mark was trained in spiritual direction 25 years ago while living in Portland, Oregon. His other ministries have included social justice advocacy, teaching ecological awareness and nonviolence, and being the Guardian (local superior) in many Franciscan friaries. He enjoys leading retreats on all sorts of topics.
Mark includes a “Franciscan spin” when meeting for spiritual direction — openness to many forms of spirituality, care of Self, and the value of action in our everyday world. Mark is also active in 12 Step spirituality.
